


Qui fume prie or Sherlock's Last Cigarette

by DonnesCafe



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cigarettes, Confessions, Did I say angst?, Drugs, Dubious Consent, Love, M/M, Memories, Parentlock, Possible Character Death, Sex, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, Suicidal Thoughts, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4861250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DonnesCafe/pseuds/DonnesCafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock sits at John's grave - better let you know that up front. He smokes, remembers, and contemplates his next move. Angsty, I'm not going to lie, but perhaps hopeful at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the title, " _qui fume prie,_ " is roughly translated "He who smokes, prays" and was the motto of an 1856 journal devoted to smoking, called _Paris fumeur_. That fact, and Sherlock's quote about cigarettes and recapitulation come from Richard Klein's _Cigarettes are Sublime._

Chapter 1

Sherlock slowly opened the dark red pack of hand-made cigarettes. Bond’s of London stamped in gold letters on the front of the pack. He took out a cigarette and examined it. Unfiltered. He picked out a bit of tobacco from one end, rolled it between his fingers, brought it up to his nose and inhaled. Kentucky flue-cured tobacco. He raised his eyebrows at that. Not low-tar. Only the best for his brother. 

He had liberated them from the secret drawer in Mycroft’s Belgravia study when he packed the books for the estate sale last week. His brother probably had them squirreled away for world crises. Unfortunately, the world now lurched on from crisis to crisis without his brother to oversee it. 

“Damn you, Mycroft,” he muttered. “I thought you quit before I did. And I thought I’d die before you did. I always miss something, don’t I?” Mycroft was only seventy-four when the stroke took him. Clean, quick. Not such a bad way to go. Sherlock always imagined his own end as a bit more spectacular. Blown up by a criminal mastermind or, at least, dispatched in an imaginative way by a serial killer. 

After an actual serial killer had trapped both Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson in Baker Street, Sherlock had been persuaded to imagine another ending for himself. Harvey Wilkinson had tied them to the sturdy kitchen chairs in the flat and proceeded to carve verses from Dante’s _Inferno,_ in Italian, into Sherlock’s arms and chest. You could still read bits of it, silvery against the surrounding skin. _Di nostre vita_ on his left bicep and _selva oscura_ underneath his right collar bone were still particularly clear. 

Fortunately the killer must have been saving Mrs. Hudson for the _Paradiso_. John came back early from the surgery before Wilkinson got to the third stanza or Sherlock certainly would have bled out. John grabbed a kitchen knife and slashed Wilkinson’s jugular in the melee that followed. He cut Sherlock and Mrs. H free with the same knife. 

Looking at John with blood on his hands and a deep weariness in his eyes convinced Sherlock that he had overestimated the romance of death by serial killer. Riding with him in the ambulance later, John simply said, “I can’t do this anymore, we’re both getting too old for this.” John wasn’t looking at him, but his hand clenched, warm and tight, around Sherlock’s. His mouth was a thin line. Sherlock decided that it was best not to point out that he wasn’t even quite sixty yet. 

“Yes,” he said, surprised by how weak his voice sounded and by how little resistance he felt to the idea. “Sussex?” 

John smiled and squeezed his hand again. “Sussex,” he said. 

Six years ago, he thought. Just six years. Sherlock flicked the hinged top of the antique brushed silver lighter, also liberated from the drawer in Mycroft’s study. Manipulated the little wheel, ignited a tiny flame. It was a lovely art-deco thing. He hadn’t had a cigarette in almost twenty years. He had promised John. 

“But you’re not here, are you, John?” He put the cigarette he had been holding to his lips, brought the lighter up to it, and took a long drag. He set the lighter beside the pack of cigarettes on the weathered garden bench. My god, smoking was every bit as good as he remembered. Sharp on his tongue, bitter, hot. He closed his eyes and felt the bite in his sinuses as the smoke trickled out from his nostrils. Deliciously warm against the chill of the early November air. 

He opened his eyes and waved the cigarette toward the grave that lay in front of the bench. It was in the back garden of the cottage under the beech tree. 

“What’s that? The cigarette? Yes, I know I promised you. But you promised you’d never leave me, so I suppose that means all bets are off. I realize you were thinking in terms of divorce or infidelity or finally having had enough of me, but death counts as leaving.” 

To be fair, John tried hard not to leave. They both had assumed, Sherlock’s proclivity for danger and general heedlessness being what it was even in the country, that Sherlock would go first. John fought until the last, and Mycroft had done everything he could to help them. Specialists, experimental treatments, nurses. Now they were both gone. In spite of himself, his love had finally overcome his need for John. He had let him go. 

“I know I agreed it was time. But, technically, you still broke your promise.” He took a long drag on the cigarette. Excellent tobacco. “You should be grateful it isn’t heroin, John. I’m not too old to go back into London and find some, you know. I’m also not too old to go back to London and the serial killers.” He plucked another cigarette out of the pack, lit it from the first, dropping the fag end on the ground where it smoldered, a tiny wreath of smoke coming up from the grass. He took another long drag, pulled smoke and darkness and death into his lungs gladly. 

“Smoking is indispensable if one has nothing to kiss. Freud said that, John. Wise man, Freud, in spite of the nonsense about the Oedipal complex. Much more logical on smoking and religion. Religion as wish-fulfillment. As much as I wish I believed that you still existed in some…,” he coughed and felt his eyes water. Just the smoke. “…some heaven or other, or the spirit world, I think it highly unlikely. However, I will admit that it’s difficult to prove a negative. I’m willing to concede that modern physics might be construed to allow alternate dimensions. Does that surprise you? What’s that? Oh, ‘more things in heaven and earth…’ Perhaps.” 

Sherlock puffed contemplatively for a few minutes. John had chosen well. The beech tree had shed most of its golden leaves on the grass that covered his grave and the back hedge shielded them both from the worst of a light wind that had kicked up. 

“Why am I here? Yes, I know it’s bloody cold and you think I should be in the house having breakfast. I’m here because I made you another promise. One I kept. You were right in your deduction that I would want to follow you. Shrewd of you to make me promise to give it a year. I assume you thought that within a year I would have learned how to deal with this. Would miss you less. Foolish, John. However, I’ve done as I promised. Of course you realized why I’m here. Today.” 

Sherlock stubbed out the second cigarette on the arm of the bench. “I wanted to say goodbye.” Suddenly he smiled. “Or, if I’m wrong about everything, perhaps hello.” Sentiment. He found he didn’t care. 

“I have a pack of Mycroft’s excellent, secret cigarettes here. Two down, eighteen to go. I haven’t decided how to do it, exactly. So I thought I’d smoke these, and you can help me decide. Hours yet before dark. I’ve narrowed it down to three methods. Number one: your gun. It’s still in the bedside table. Advantages. Your gun, so I’m attached to it. Lots of history there. Seems poetic, somehow. Quick. Certain if you know where to aim it. And I do, of course. Disadvantages. You’d hate that I used your gun that way. And that I didn’t clean it afterwards. Messy for whoever finds me. You’d almost cured me of making spectacular messes.” 

Almost. Sherlock thought about the lye that had eaten through the corner of the kitchen table just last week. 

“What? Oh, number two. Drug overdose. Advantages: I’d have to go into London to get the drugs. It would be nice to see London one last time. I was thinking a speedball. The ecstatic high, then the mellow descent in the dark. Mycroft kept Baker Street empty, so I’d do it there. Full circle. Can’t really think of any disadvantages, except that you’d be disappointed in me. But you’re gone, John. Oh. I said that already, didn’t I? The third? Slow but sure. Keep smoking, quit eating, discreet drug use. A slower method, but I don’t think it would take long. Advantages? I’m quite liking the smoking part. Perhaps more elegant. Not showy. I would go gentle into the night, good or otherwise. Disadvantages? It would involve Tess. I know, she’ll be involved anyway. She’s our daughter, after all. But she and Michael are in America right now. The symphony is touring. Methods one and two, while difficult for her, have the advantage that it happens while she’s away. She doesn’t have to go through another slow decline. Doesn’t have to identify the body. By the time she gets back, that will all be sorted. I’ll even leave a letter for the vicar with everything planned.” 

A tiny, bitter laugh escaped him. The vicar. He never expected to have someone he identified as his vicar. But Simon was a decent man who played the oboe and a fair game of chess. That was village life for you. 

“You thought I’d become reconciled to living without you? Not for one moment. Anyway, while you’re thinking about the appropriate method, I’ll smoke. Shall I tell you about my first cigarette? That’s something non-smokers have never understood. Freud never said the thing about a cigar sometimes being just a cigar. That’s a myth, and it’s something a smoker would never say. Someone who actually understood smoking once said that each cigarette is the recapitulation of all the identical ones smoked before and after. They are moments, John. They freeze time, they suspend it, they transcend it, they connect it.” 

Baudelaire said that cigarettes interrupt time, but could they turn it back? Maybe for a little while. Eighteen cigarettes left. 

“So, my first cigarette was when I was eight,” he said, reaching into the pack.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cigarettes three and four, the story of Sherlock's first cigarette, and some confessions.

Sherlock lit the third cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. They protested faintly, but they would just have to reacquaint themselves with the burn. He looked for long moments out at the slate grey sky beyond the hedge. The sun had come up behind him some time ago. 

The cottage faced south with an unimpeded view to the sea. It wasn’t far from the cliffs. The hives dotted the slope of grass to the north. The old beech tree presided over the westernmost corner of the garden, and his bench faced it. When they first moved here, John set up an old farmhouse table and chairs near the tree, along with the bench. They had eaten countless meals out here, endless cups of tea, even made love on the table on occasion. The hedge screened it from prying eyes and when Sherlock pressed John down onto its scarred surface, rucked his shirt up, stroked his belly, John had simply laughed and hooked his legs around Sherlock’s hips. 

John loved having a glass of whiskey here as dusk fell during the summer. It was his chosen spot, even at the end when Sherlock carried him out into the garden and tucked him up into one of the chairs, a blanket wrapped around his legs. 

Sherlock’s eyes fell from the sky to the spot under the tree that John had chosen. 

“So,” he said, “my first cigarette. Technically it was Mycroft’s cigarette, but I appropriated it. I was eight, and I worshipped my brother. I know, hard to believe, isn’t it? Did you know Mycroft was dead, by the way? I might have forgotten to mention it. Last month. Stroke. Couldn’t let go of the power, and it killed him.” Sherlock took a savage drag at the cigarette. 

“Anyway, when I was a child I thought he was the sun and moon and stars. Ridiculous. He came home from Eton after the Summer Half. They said they had no more to teach him, and he was kicking his heels at home until he could start at Balliol at the Michaelmas term. I thought I had my brother back, at least for a little while. We could play chess, we could explore, he could read to me the way he sometimes did. We used to lie in the grass in the garden. He’d sit up against a tree and let me put my head in his lap.” 

Sherlock felt something tighten in his throat. Just the smoke. He wasn’t used to it. 

“That surprises you, John? I never really told you the truth about Mycroft, that I once loved him. It hurt too much. He pushed me away first, but he was a teenager. A very strange young man trying to fit into an even stranger world. By the time I understood, there was too much water under that particular bridge. What? Yes, you’re right, not water. Too many drugs, too many insults, too much pride, too much hurt.” 

Sherlock sighed. “Anyway, the cigarette. It turned out Mycroft didn’t have time for me. He had grown up that year, in a way I didn’t understand. He was off pursuing the lads of the surrounding countryside. Drinking, wooing, hormones rampant in a way that he learned later to control. And he smoked in secret. So very sophisticated, I thought. I wanted to be like him, so I snuck into his room one afternoon, took the only pack I could find, and went out into the garden to smoke them.” 

“Yes, John, of course they were horrible. Benson & Hedges Gold, as I remember. I think that’s as much sophistication as the shops in the village ran to at the time. I had followed Mycroft into the village one day and saw him smoking with Frank Miller, the boy who waited tables at the Swan. So I knew generally how it was done. I puffed on the first one. It tasted absolutely vile, but I perservered. Why? Why does anyone smoke, John? I needed something. I was alone, I was misunderstood, I was uneasy in my own skin, I was a strange child with no friends and a complicated mind. The world seemed too big and too small at the same time. After the first three or four, I managed to inhale. After number six I threw up. Undignified in the extreme, especially since that’s when Mummy came upon the scene.” 

Sherlock threw the fag end of the cigarette on the ground. John hated mess in the garden, and it did seem disrespectful so near the grave. Unfortunately, since John had forced him to give up smoking twenty years ago, there were no ash trays about. 

“Anyway, that’s the story of my first cigarette. Cigarettes, actually. I was sent to my room, but I could still hear an almighty row when Mycroft got back to the house. Never heard the details, but Mummy hated smoking and had made him promise he’d never do it. Might have also had something to do with Frank Miller down the pub. Mycroft left the next day to go stay with friends from Eton. We hadn’t seen each other much since he left for school, anyway.” 

Mycroft had actually tried to connect with him when he was home for the holidays, but his career at Balliol and entrance into the foreign service when barely twenty left them little time. Sherlock had entered Eton at ten, been kicked out at eleven, went to Winchester.They seldom saw each other. 

“Did I keep smoking? Not for a long time. Cigarettes were bitter, the memory was bitter, they were something Mycroft did. I decided I didn't need him, didn't want to be like him anymore. But then I discovered the Holy Trinity. What? The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Hardly, John.” 

He took another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. God, he had missed this. There was nothing quite like the activation of the cholinergic neurons. He felt focused, energetic. He got up from the bench and went to stand next to the headstone. He brushed away two golden leaves that had caught on the top. He drew smoke into his mouth, held it a moment, then blew a perfect smoke ring out over the green grass covering John. 

“I'm being disrespectful? I know you hate me smoking. All I can say is that you’re welcome to come and haunt me. Chastise me. Throw things about the cottage. Anything, John, anything except _this._ God, I miss you.” 

He turned away and ran a hand through his hair, still mostly dark. He could feel the strands of coarser grey slip through his fingers. More of it over the last year or so. He took a turn around the garden. John wouldn’t be happy with the state of it, he realized. John had been the gardener, he the beekeeper. If he decided on door number three, the slow route into darkness, he’d have to cut back the iris border and the berry bushes. The daylilies were a mess and the beebalm needed thinning. The _Rudbeckia_ and _sedum Heuchera_ could be left alone over the winter. The birds liked the seeds and cover. He loathed working in the garden. Another argument for the gun. 

He returned to the bench and sat down again. This was really excellent tobacco. Nicotine stimulates glutamate as well. Glutamate enhances memory, so not only does smoking one cigarette remind you forcibly of how good they have been in the past, but also of the memories linked to cigarettes in the past. 

“The Holy Trinity? I found my Holy Trinity at uni. No, not sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Good guess, though. I always thought classical music far superior to rock. For me it was sex, drugs, and Lady Nicotine. I’m sure the part of that you find most surprising is the sex. You always suspected I was a bit of a late-bloomer in that area, didn’t you? I never disabused you of that notion because I never wanted to talk about it. I loved you, I loved sex with you. That’s all you needed to know. I wanted to leave my dark past in the dark. But here we are, with sixteen and a half cigarettes left.” 

He had never been able to tell John about it, although John had guessed some of it. He had never wanted John to look at him with pity or condemnation. Now was as good a time as any. 

“Did you ever wonder if you were the first? Much too gentlemanly to ask, Captain Watson. Well, I’m sorry to disillusion you, but not by a long chalk. I was, I suppose I am still, bisexual. But you were the first partner to love me, I think. I’m almost sure. Isn’t that more important? I think so. Anyway, I’ll make a long and rather sordid story short. I told you I was a lonely child. I was even lonelier at school. I was different, and most of them hated me. I went to Magdalen when I was sixteen. I was a virgin. I fell in love with a boy named Victor Trevor. I thought he loved me. Then I was no longer a virgin." 

Sherlock looked down at his hands. One was massaging his knee. Touch of arthritis there. The other held the half-smoked cigarette. He couldn’t look at John’s grave. He wished with all his heart that John had been the first. 

“Then he left to form a more respectable alliance with an MP’s daughter. My music professor liked my face as well as my way with Bach. She was married, but that didn’t seem to matter. She was beautiful. Again, I fancied myself in love. She fancied a fuck in between Baroque duos for violin and cello. She laughed when I told her I loved her. After that things became a bit of a blur. Sebastian Wilkes took me in hand. Literally.” 

Sherlock looked up. “Yes, that wanker, John. Well put, since there was quite a bit of mutual wanking and other things. No talk of love there. I was a bit slow, but I did learn. Seb was an enthusiastic bed partner and an equally enthusiastic drug dealer. I found that the combination of rough sex, cocaine, and nicotine did marvelous things for the brain. Your training would tell you that any of those stimulate endorphins. Together, they made quite a potent painkiller. My life was painful and I was weak. I found my holy trinity and I stuck with it for quite a while. Left uni, went to London, didn’t feel much for as long as I could help it. Combined sex and drugs, traded sex with dealers for drugs, had sex with women for money for drugs. Always cigarettes for a boost, cigarettes to have something to do, cigarettes when I was bored, cigarettes after sex, cigarettes to enhance a high, cigarettes to come down from a high. When the pain became too much, I would switch to morphine. When the pain became too much for that, I overdosed.” 

Sherlock crushed what little remained of the cigarette on the arm of the bench. He stood up abruptly and turned away from the grave. If he had tears in his eyes, John could no longer see them. 

“I told you it was sordid. I’m going inside to make tea. I’ll be back. Don’t smoke any of my cigarettes while I’m gone.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I brought you tea. PG Tips, just like you like it. You complained often enough that I never made the tea.” 

Sherlock set John’s RAMC mug carefully on the grass in front of the headstone. “Has a rather Egyptian vibe, doesn’t it, provisions for the afterlife? Although if I want your displeased ghost to haunt me, I should be withholding funerary goods, I suppose. So no cane, no laptop, no cozy jumpers for you, John Watson. I don’t want you to be comfortable wherever you are.” 

Sherlock sipped his own tea. John always had plebian tastes in food and drink, but this seemed appropriate to the day. He set his cup on the bench, picked up the cigarettes from beside the cup. He lit one, sat, and folded his legs under him. 

“Number five, John. A quarter of the pack already gone. Speaking of funerary goods, did I ever tell you about that smuggling case in Egypt? I recovered the most beautiful death mask. Onyx with turquoise and gold eyes. A small thing, probably for a child. Beautiful, fragile. Ironic, isn’t it, how even the most fragile artifacts can outlast us in the end.” 

He knew damn well that he hadn’t told John about that case. Ever. It was after he had killed Magnussen, after he had spent another two years chasing an undead Moriarty around the globe. Two years. He had survived Eastern Europe and several other adventures. It had been a near run thing, but he took satisfaction in the fact that it was one of the few times Mycroft had been wrong. 

Sherlock was going to have to tell John today, of course. That was part of the rationale for the cigarettes. It would be cowardly to off himself without telling John about Egypt. And a few other things. Physically he needed the calm and clarity of nicotine. Symbolically? Forgive me, John, for I have sinned in thought, word, and deed. I have done those things which I ought not to have done. I have left undone… well, left unsaid… those things that I ought to have said. _Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa._ Each cigarette was a little burnt offering, a memory, a bit of his past. Smoke rising toward the heavens. Cense the altar of my soul with acrid fumes, and I shall be clean. 

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Shakespeare, John. Shakespeare is better than religion, I always thought. What? Yes, I know you never cared for Shakespeare. Oh, you want the smoking story. You were always so literal-minded. Very well. Where were we? Oh, yes, the first overdose.” 

Sherlock drained most of his tea in a quick gulp and dropped the smoldering end of the cigarette into the dregs. It hissed briefly. The cup was a lovely green and gold Staffordshire piece, one of an antique set Molly had given them as a wedding present. He lit another cigarette. Number six, he noted. 

“Mycroft found me, saved me, blah, blah, blah. Sent me to rehab in Yorkshire, where they wouldn’t let us smoke. No drugs, no cigarettes. I gave up sex, too. Too many associations. It worked after a fashion. For a while. I went back to London, got a dreadful flat in Montague Street. I became interested in crime, found I had a talent for solving it. Met Lestrade. You know most of this already, John. Tedious. Got bored, got high again. Started smoking again. Didn’t take up sex again for quite a while. I thought if I could keep it to two out of three, I might not be driven to overdose. Got clean, got high. Got clean, got high. What? Yes, John, good imitation of my voice. Tedious.” 

“Anyway, I went to Berlin on a private case. Berlin was my perfect mirror, a grey, sexy, fascinating abyss of a place. Like Narcissus, I fell into the pool. I stayed. Cigarettes, cocaine, sex, music, philosophy. God help me, I even painted for a while. Grandmère Vernet was a painter, and art in the blood takes all sorts of forms. Including tendencies to addiction. Anyway, second overdose. Mycroft spirited me out of the city. Yes, excellent deduction, John. To Florida. Rehab in the sun, away from the seductions of culture. Then Mr. and Mrs. Hudson. The rest you know, more or less.” 

Less in some areas, thought Sherlock. He would get back to those. It was still early in the day. And the pack. 

“Smoking was the difficult one. Giving up sex again was easy. I could sublimate that to the work without much difficulty. Drugs were always tempting, but with you and the work I could get by without them, without sex. But I still needed nicotine. I tried to quit for a long time. I knew you didn’t like it, but I never quit for long. I used the patches in 221, but I smoked outdoors when I could. I smoked in the park while you were working. I smoked on the roof while you were out on dates with Sara or Jennifer or Mandy or Sandy or whomever.” 

“Yes, John, you’re right. I was a deceitful bugger. To be fair, I never claimed to be a good person. I lied to you about the smoking for years. What? Yes, yes, I lied to you about my death, too. What else did I lie to you about?” 

That was, of course, an excellent question. 

“Don’t you think I should get some lunch, John? God knows, you were always rabbiting on and on about how I needed to eat. Hold that thought. I’ll be back.” 

Sherlock stuck the cigarettes and lighter into his coat pocket. Still graceful, he bent and snatched John’s cup from the grass without spilling a drop and headed toward the cottage.


	4. Chapter 4

“I had some of the stew Liz brought over yesterday. It was the lamb that you liked. I hope you’re happy that I’m eating.” Liz was the vicar’s wife. She mostly left him alone, for which he was grateful. She tried to treat him normally since John died, but her big, brown eyes were always too full of both intelligence and compassion. She saw too much. She was, however, an excellent cook. He hadn’t gone so far as to bring John out any of the stew. 

“I brought us both a beer.” He set John’s down on top of the headstone. Newcastle Brown. John liked darker ales in autumn. Sherlock preferred wine and Irish whiskey, but he still kept beer in the fridge and avoided thinking about why. He put his on the broad wood arm of the bench, took out the cigarettes, and lit one. Number seven. He took a long drag, then a sip of the beer. 

“I need to tell you about Egypt, John. But I have to go back before that, so that you’ll understand why I never told you.” 

He took another drag on the cigarette. This wasn’t going to get any easier. 

“I fucked Irene Adler.” Well, that was bald enough. “I don’t know whether you believed the ridiculous story Mycroft fed you about America and the witness protection program. Or did you both believe she was dead? Were you trying to spare my feelings? Really, John. No, she wasn’t dead. I sent her to her death, but once I got over my wounded vanity I thought better of it. I didn’t want that on my conscience.” 

“What? Yes, John, I had a conscience even then. It was before… before us, John. Before we married, before I ever thought there might be… us. But I knew you wouldn’t like it. I didn’t love her, John. It was complicated.” 

He took another swig of beer. Took another drag of the cigarette. How to tell the story? 

“She had gone to ground in Pakistan. She needed money, so she began to discretely ply her trade again. I found out where she was at the same time the Lashkar-e-Taiba did a sweep to clean out pernicious foreigners. She was caught up in it. They didn’t know who she was. It had nothing to do with her past finding her out. She was just another prostitute in their eyes, and the punishment was stoning or beheading. I barely made it there in time.” 

He lit cigarette number eight from the burning stub of number seven. 

“We got back to Karachi, found a little guest house on the bay. We got two rooms. Two rooms, John. Just want to be clear about that. I never intended for anything to happen.” 

He drained half his beer in one go and sat smoking for long moments. Then he abruptly got up, moved closer to the headstone, and sat cross-legged on the grass. He reached out and gently touched the stone. 

“In my defense, I didn’t quite realize I loved you then.” He drew back his hand. He drained the rest of the beer and put the empty bottle on top of the headstone beside the one that remained full. 

“We were sitting on the back veranda of the guest house, looking out over the water. She must have ordered the whiskey and Dunhills while I was showering. We both almost died at the camp. Adrenaline. Sex and death. Always connected. I don’t know why both Irene and my brother assumed I was a virgin. Mycroft’s surveillance wasn’t as thorough back in the days when I was fucking and using. Anyway.” 

He finished the cigarette slowly, stubbed it out in the grass. 

“You and Mycroft were right about one thing. She did fascinate me. She was like my mirror image. A sort of Jungian reversal if you will, my repressions made manifest. To make the beginning of a long story short, the woman tempted me, and I did…. Well, a lot of things. She was quite skilled at her trade, and I think I surprised her. I’m sure you don’t want to hear the details. What do you need to know? I was a willing participant. It broke something open inside me. I wanted. Again. Sensation. Release. Connection.” 

He stood up, put his hand on the gravestone again. “It made me realize that what I really wanted was you, John. That’s when I knew. And I thought I would never have you. Not in that way. There’s more to the story, but please remember that I never loved her. We were too much alike, Irene and I.” He stuck both hand into his coat pockets and looked at the grey sky. 

“I think I’ll take a walk down to the cliffs. The afternoon’s getting on, John. Have you thought about my method? Any advice? Think on it, and I’ll be back.” 

Sherlock turned and made for the garden gate.


	5. Chapter 5

“I didn’t take you for a jumper. Hurling yourself into the sea doesn’t strike me as quite your style.” 

Sherlock whirled around. He hadn’t even heard him coming. He was definitely losing it. 

“What the.... What are you doing here?” 

The vicar came up and stood beside him. The wind off the sea ruffled his white hair. 

“I’m sure you can deduce it, Sherlock. Off you go. Didn’t know you smoked. Can I have one?” 

“Didn’t know you smoked either, Simon.” He fished the pack out of his coat and passed it to Simon along with the lighter. That was nine and ten gone, then. Halfway through the pack. More than halfway through the day. The vicar took out a cigarette, passed the pack back, and turned to shelter the little flame against the breeze as he lit the cigarette. 

“Good God, that’s wonderful,” he said. “I haven’t had a cigarette in three years. Liz made me quit when she agreed to marry me. Since she’s a saint to put up with me at all, it was the least I could do. You?” 

“Twenty years. John made me quit for good when we… When he realized we were going to be together. What we do for love.” Sherlock’s voice sounded bitter, even to himself. 

The two men turned, looked out over the grey waves below them, and smoked silently. 

“The deductions, Sherlock,” Simon reminded him. 

Sherlock sighed and turned his head slightly to look into the vicar’s lined face. Simon lost the love of his life the year Sherlock and John had moved to Sussex. Laura was a stunningly beautiful woman who sang like an angel. Bone cancer. If anyone understood Sherlock, it was Simon. 

“John died a year ago today. He told you about our agreement.” 

“Simple,” the vicar said, taking a long drag on the cigarette. “Liz is going to smell this on my clothes. I hope you realize that I’m blaming you entirely. What else?” 

“He knew I’d kill myself. He sent you to stop me.” 

“Wrong.” 

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “What did I get wrong?” 

“We both know you too well to think anyone could stop you doing anything. You’ll make your own decision. John asked me to visit about tea-time because he thought it was even odds that you’d off yourself before tea. Thought it was better that I find you. He said, and I quote, ‘If the wanker blows his head off, I don’t want Mrs. Caldwell finding him.' Unquote.” 

That surprised a laugh out of Sherlock. God, he could hear John say it. He missed him so. Emma Caldwell was the occasional help. She cooked and cleaned and complained about the messes Sherlock made. 

“John was more of a gentleman than I ever was. But I think he underestimated Emma. She’s an old countrywoman. Made of sterner stuff. He thought I’d use his gun, did he?” 

“That or an overdose.” 

The hand holding the cigarette twitched. Sherlock consciously steadied it, lifted the cigarette, and took a last drag. Almost down to the filter. 

“You’re not going to try to talk me out of it? You surprise me. I thought suicide was a sin.” 

“I thought about it often enough myself after Laura died.” 

“What changed your mind?” Sherlock was curious in spite of himself. “Bad example to the flock?” 

“Nothing so worthy.” Simon took a last puff of the cigarette and flicked the end over the cliff. “She loved life so much. Savored every day, even at the end. It just seemed to me, finally, that not doing the same would dishonour her memory. It’s different for everyone, Sherlock. I think the Stoics had it right, actually. If it seems the most honourable course to you, I’m not here to dissuade you. I just thought I’d see how you were doing. And Liz sent scones. I left them in the cottage. Tea? You could tell me how you and John got together. I’ve always wondered.” 

It was a transparent ploy, Sherlock thought. But he liked the vicar, and Liz’s scones were the best in the village. He nodded and the two men turned and walked up the gentle slope, past the quiet hives, toward the cottage.


	6. Chapter 6

The scones were glorious. Liz had folded in tiny slivers of apple and candied ginger. They tasted like autumn and sympathy, with a hint of regret. Sherlock knew he was being fanciful. Liz was a brilliant baker, though. If anyone could suggest sympathy via flour and regret with a hint of nutmeg, she could. He would miss her. He would miss Simon. Not enough to change his mind, however. He missed John so much more. 

The vicar reached for the Staffordshire pot and refilled both their cups. “I noticed John didn’t drink his beer. I’m not judging. I made two cups of tea every morning for over a year after Laura died.” 

Sherlock pushed the cigarette pack toward him. 

“Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” the vicar muttered as he lit one. 

Sherlock took one of his own. Simon passed the lighter to him. Eleven and twelve. Sherlock couldn’t help but count them down. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he said. 

Simon jerked mid-drag and started coughing. Once he had it under control, he looked at the man across the table from him sharply. 

“Please don’t joke about that, Sherlock. I thought we had declared religion off-limits as a topic between us a long time ago.” 

“I’m perfectly serious. I may not believe in God, but being shriven before death has a long and honorable tradition. I hear it has psychological benefits.” 

“So we’re not even pretending that you’re not actually thinking about killing yourself? What about Tess? What about all of the people who care about you?” 

Sherlock smoked in silence for a moment, looking down at the scarred oak surface of the kitchen table. He sighed. 

“I’ve always been a selfish bastard at heart, Simon. Tess has Michael. John doesn’t need me anymore. I find the days quite… empty. The thought of declining into decrepitude without John holds little appeal.” 

“You’re not old yet, Sherlock.” 

He laughed bitterly. “Only in comparison to you, fossil.” Each man contemplated the smoke rising from the tip of his own cigarette. Finally Simon spoke. 

“You do realize that as an Anglican priest I rarely hear private confessions anymore? I take it you'd prefer that I skip what you once called 'all the mumbo-jumbo'?” 

“You do realize that as an atheist I find ecclesiastical minutiae of no concern whatsoever one way or the other? Say whatever you'd like. It's all one to me.” 

“Fair enough.” The vicar stubbed out the end of his cigarette in his saucer and reached into the pocket of his old tweed jacket and pulled out a long strip of green silk embroidered in gold. He put it around his neck. 

“Don’t draw back like you’re possessed, Sherlock. It’s just a stole. I was doing a visitation of the sick before I came here. Old Mrs. Henry isn’t long for this world. How long has it been since your last confession?” Simon sounded perfectly serious. Sherlock admitted to himself that he had started this, so it was a fair question. 

“Officially? Fifty-four years and seven months, give or take. First Communion. And last, I might add. I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you. But I was actually in the process of confessing to John when you arrived. I might as well try it out on you. I had just gotten started.” 

“I’m listening.” 

Sherlock sighed. He lit another cigarette. “I was just telling John that I had….” He hesitated. Simon was a priest, after all. “I had sexual relations with a woman. It was before John and I married.” He fell silent. “But I should go back farther. You wanted to know how John and I ended up together. We were flatmates." 

“I know that much. Laura and I used to follow John’s blog. Exciting stuff.” 

“John sensationalized everything. It was his greatest fault as a writer.” 

“We loved that blog. We were sorry he quit. Was it because of Tess?” 

“In part. I was… away… when she was born. I was gone for two years. When I came back we didn’t see each other often. He was trying to be a good husband and father. His wife didn’t approve of him risking his life playing detective with me. I could hardly blame her.” 

“When did you realize you were in love with him?” Simon had an irritating habit of cutting to the heart of matters. 

“Not until it was too late. Or so I thought. We didn’t get together until years later, after Mary died. Tess was six when they moved to Baker Street. But before that, there was a woman. Her name was Irene. We worked together. We had sex.” 

“Pardon me if I’m being obtuse, but if John was married at the time... why the need for confession?” 

“I didn’t love her.” 

“Not ideal, but not unusual. Look, I’m not usually in the business of minimizing transgressions. What am I missing?” 

“I loved John, Simon. And I knew it by then. He disliked Irene intensely. It seemed… no, it seems… disloyal. And I lied to him by omission. I knew he wouldn’t like it, so I never told him.” 

Simon reached over and tentatively put his hand on the long, pale hand clutched into a fist on the table across from him. 

“You’re a romantic, Sherlock, and you’re an idealist.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sherlock jerked his hand away. 

“You’d think I just accused you of compassion or something equally illogical. You expect too much of yourself. John would … does, I’m sure… forgive you.” 

Sherlock made an ambiguous sound around his cigarette. Puffed, then lowered it. 

“There was a child.” 

“Was?” 

Sherlock ground the last of his cigarette out in Simon’s saucer. 

“Was.” 

Simon stood, folded the stole, and put it back in his pocket. 

“It’s getting late. I think you need to tell John first, don’t you? I’ll make another pot of tea. I’ll be here as long as you want me to be. But go talk to John.” 

Sherlock nodded, grabbed his Belstaff and the dwindling pack of cigarettes, and went out into the dark garden. Light from a full moon turned the paths to grey and guided his way to the bench. He sat for a moment looking up at the stars. 

“I’m back. Did you think having Simon drop by would stop me? Don't be ridiculous. He’s still back at the cottage swilling tea. Where was I? Fucking Irene in Pakistan. I told Simon. Don't they say confession is good for the soul? Assuming there is a soul? No, I didn’t say ‘fuck’ to Simon. Give me some credit for tact. You did manage to induce me to think before I spoke on some occasions. But between us let’s call a spade a spade. After Pakistan, I didn’t see her again until Eastern Europe. Yes, that trip to Eastern Europe. I had been trying to quit again, but once I got to Belgrade I bought a pack at the airport. I smoked two packs a day from then on, when I could get them, all the while I was hunting Moriarty down for the second time. After all, I only had six months left to me according to Mycroft, so the consequences of smoking didn’t loom large in my mind." 

Sherlock took out the pack of cigarettes, lit another. Number fourteen. 

"Europe was still a glorious place to smoke back then. Sex and cigarettes. Two out of three wasn’t bad. I ran into Irene in Munich. Picture a dim day in March. A small table beside a café, close to a cobbled street beginning to slick with a mist slowly turning to light rain. The chair across from me was empty. I was imagining you there, but that felt pitiable, even to me. Then she sat down. In your chair. Black dress, black Sobranie, gold tip stained by mulberry lipstick. Yes, John, it does sound like cliché film noir. What can I say. I was feeling very sorry for myself. She helped me hunt Moriarty. We smoked and fucked and hunted our way across Europe into the Middle East. Then India. Then Egypt. I’ll tell you about Egypt, but I need to tell you about India first.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very angsty, may be triggering for some. has to do with a (possible) infant death. I swear there's light at the end of this tunnel, just so you know.

“At least this has a filter.” Sherlock held number fifteen out toward the grave. “You should approve of that, at least. In India I smoked bidi. Foul things. I suppose you’d say they’re all foul. Bidi, fag, rokok, papieros, taba. I can ask for cigarettes in every language. David Bowie said that, John. You never had sufficient appreciation for Bowie. You were too heteronormative in your tastes, in spite of everything. Strange, since you were such a passionate, non-hetero lover under the boring jumper-and-old-soldier façade.” 

Sherlock took a long drag of the cigarette and followed the smoke up until it disappeared against the stars. They were bright tonight. Suddenly they blurred, and he realized that he was crying. Nonsense. He drew the scratchy wool sleeve of the now-ancient Belstaff across his face. He hadn’t cried in months. 

“It’s just that I miss it all,” he whispered. “I miss everything about you. I miss the boring jumpers, I miss your yelling at me to eat, I miss feeling your breath on my neck at night, I miss kissing the skin on the inside of your thighs. I’m so tired of missing you.” 

He blotted his face again and took in another lungful of smoke. Held it. Let it go. 

“Anyway, India. We had Moriarty on the run again. Damn the man. They were like coachroaches, Moriarty and his network. I thought I’d gotten them the first time, but they scattered and multiplied. I made the mistake of starting at the bottom the last time, since I thought the head roach was dead. Irene and I realized that we had to go for the top. That meant Moriarty and Moran. We just missed them in Dubai. We tracked Moran to India.” 

He hated India. He loathed the crowds, the noise, the poverty. He loved India. The colors made him want to start painting again. The people were a whole new universe of deductions. There was hot, milky, spicy tea anywhere and anytime he wanted it. He remembered sweltering in his bed in Delhi, wanking to guilty fantasies of John as a soldier for the Raj. He would strip off the white helmet and run his fingers through John’s golden hair, slowly unbutton the gold buttons and put his hands inside the red jacket. He hardly ever got past licking John’s scar before he came. 

“You would have found a red jacket if you knew it was such a turn-on? I never needed fantasies when I had the real thing. Anyway, we miscalculated. Moran found us first. Found me, to be specific. He tried to knife me in an alley near the Khanna Market, but the knife glanced off a rib. Got the lung, but not the heart. There was a doctor in the crowd. He was like you, John. Well, he was Indian, but he was very calm. Very capable. He seemed puzzled that I called him John before I passed out. I was in hospital a month. Then Irene took me back to a house she had rented. I was basically in bed for another month. Not much to do in bed, but Irene was very inventive. What can I say. I was bored. We had a lot of sex. Then we spent another month in India trying to get a handle on our next move.” 

Sherlock lit another cigarette from the end of the last. 

“See, this is one reason I never told you. You have absolutely nothing of which to be jealous. You and I did everything either of us wanted to do sexually, as far as I know. At least I hope you told me everything you wanted. There is nothing I wouldn’t have done for you. With you. But Irene and I did, technically, become one flesh in a way you and I never could." 

He smoked for long moments. 

“What? Oh, get on with it? Very well. The thing I never told you. Should have told you. Tried to tell you so many times. Before we left India, we found out that Irene was pregnant. I didn’t love her, John, but I did come to care for her. We had become friends. She always could surprise me, and she surprised me then. She wanted to keep the child. So did I.” 

They had agreed. As soon as they finished with Moriarty, Sherlock would tell Mycroft. He would arrange new identity and safe haven for Irene. They had no interest in living together, and he would never try take the child away from her. Sherlock would visit his son discreetly until they were sure it was safe to be more open. His son. They had found out weeks later that it was a boy. When he was older, he could decide where to live. His son. Sherlock sighed. 

“I would have told you when it was safe, John. I swear. But it never came to that. Moriarty killed them both.” 

“Who did Moriarty kill, Sherlock?” 

He jerked around, dragging his sleeve over his damp eyes yet again. 

“What the _hell_ are you doing here? My garden has turned into Piccadilly Circus today.” He turned back around, trying to compose himself. 

Lestrade sat down on the bench beside him. 

“Ta for the welcome. Would have been here earlier but the traffic on the upper artery was murder. I thought smart cars were supposed to fix that. We brought dinner. Molly’s talking to the vicar. Nice guy.” 

Sherlock was grateful that Greg was nattering to give him time to get himself together. 

“Bad timing?” 

Sherlock shrugged. 

“John sent you here today?” 

“Nah. Mycroft. Sent Molly a letter after John died. Thought tonight might be a danger night.” 

Sherlock smiled. He should never underestimate his brother’s ability to interfere, even from beyond the grave. He turned to look at Greg. His hair was totally white now, but it was still the same short, spikey style. He looked well, actually, for his age. 

“Dinner from London? What did you bring?” 

“Chinese. Ling’s is still there. Seemed appropriate.” Sherlock felt tears prick behind his eyelids again. This was becoming tedious. Just because Ling’s had been his and John’s favorite and Greg remembered didn’t mean he had to get sentimental. 

“Not hungry,” said Sherlock. 

“Then we’ll wait until you are. I see you’re smoking again. Give me one.” 

“You quit years ago.” 

“So did you, you git. Give me one.” 

Sherlock handed the pack over, along with the lighter. 

“They were Mycroft’s last pack. Seemed appropriate, somehow.” 

Greg lit up and handed the pack and lighter back. 

“Too right,” he said. “So, who did Moriarity kill?” 

Sherlock lit another cigarette. Only two left in the pack, now. Fitting that he was smoking with Lestrade here at the end. They could finish them off before he got rid of his visitors. He looked at John’s grave. He didn’t want to see Lestrade’s reaction. Didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. 

“I was just telling John. My son and his mother. I never even got to see him. Moriarty killed Irene before the boy was born. I strangled the son of a bitch with my bare hands when I found out, but I was too late.” 

They smoked. At some point Lestrade put an arm around his shoulders. He didn’t shake it off.


	8. Chapter 8

He heard her coming up behind him. Felt small hands light on his shoulders. They squeezed. 

“Come inside, Sherlock. The vicar is heating up the food.” 

“Not hungry.” 

“Don’t care,” Molly said. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. 

Sherlock sighed. He knew he wouldn’t win this battle. He reached a hand up and clasped one of hers. He turned to look at her. She was still slight, but age and motherhood had given her gravitas. Her grey hair was still long, swept up into some sort of chignon. Looked good on her. 

“How are the twins?” 

She smiled. “Bria is busy with the animals and the children. Sherry is still rising in the Met, working all hours and loving it.” Bria was a vet in Shropshire with an uncounted number of children. Actually, he was sure they could be counted, he just never bothered to keep up. He and John just bought… used to buy… lashings of presents for Christmas and birthdays and distributed them randomly. The grandchildren found this endlessly amusing and didn’t mind trading. 

“It’s cold out here. If you don’t care about yourself, you can at least care for Greg’s rheumatism. And you’re smoking. You’re _both_ smoking. Idiots!” 

She cuffed them both around their heads. 

“Ow! Molly, you can hit your husband, but leave me alone.” 

“Put those out now and come inside.” 

They did. 

Simon looked up from the stove as they came in. 

“Hot and sour soup is ready, and the jiaozi. The braised duck is warming in the oven. Shrimp in the pot. I haven’t had good Chinese in months. You’re sure you don’t mind me staying?” 

“Anyone who can stand Sherlock is a friend of ours,” Greg said. “You sit. I’ll dish up.” 

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Outnumbered, God dammit. How long were they going to stay? He still hadn’t decided, and it was getting late. He admitted to himself that what he was privately, almost subconsciously, thinking of as romantic tragedy was turning into farce. Colonel Mustard in the library with the rope. The vicar in the kitchen with the ladle. 

They ate and talked. The night wore on. No-one seemed to be making any moves to leave. He told Molly and the vicar about his son. About Moriarty. About everything. Corporate confession, after all. It didn’t seem to matter anymore that they all knew. In fact, he seemed to want them to know. Strange. They were his friends. There, he admitted it. He still had friends. 

Greg had dug out candles. Molly was sitting close to Sherlock with her hand in his. It was, he admitted, somewhat comforting. With his unencumbered hand he poked at a piece of baozi. Steamed bun. His favorite. 

The vicar made tea. Perhaps, Sherlock thought, he wasn’t alone. Perhaps John would understand if he had to wait a bit longer. He looked at the pack of cigarettes. Two left. He squeezed Molly’s hand, then dropped it. He reached for the pack, took one out. He held the pack toward the vicar. 

“Last one?” The vicar shook his head. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. 

“Merciful God, I don’t _know_ anyone else. This is ridiculous. Did Mycroft arrange for MI5 to send agents to stop me offing myself if you lot couldn’t manage it?” 

He put down the cigarette, scraped back his chair, and stalked over to the door. He jerked it open. 

Standing on the stone pathway, hand still raised was… himself. It was like looking into a mirror. No. Like looking back in time. Forty years. 

His knees buckled and he fell onto them, clutching at the doorframe. He heard a babble of voices behind him. He couldn’t seem to stand. 

The young man got down on his knees. 

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean… I know it’s late. I lost my way. I would have been here earlier but I took a wrong turn in Selham or Slinfold. Very confusing names you English have.” 

Sherlock laughed hysterically. Even to himself, it sounded hysterical. 

“Are you alright?” The voice was a deep, velvet thing. The accent was Italian. “I’m…” 

“My son. You’re my son.” 

The young man smiled. “Si. Yes. You are ok? Let me help.” 

Strong arms went around him, helped him to stand. 

Everything went very quiet for a moment. Except that Molly was sobbing. But that was Molly. 

“How? How?” Sherlock couldn’t take his eyes off the face. His eyes. Irene’s jaw. His curls, but cut shorter than he had ever worn his hair. Irene’s forehead. His mouth. 

He felt Greg’s hand on his shoulder. A hand came around him held out to his son. 

“I’m Greg. Friend of Sherlock’s.” 

The young man shook it, all the while keeping a firm hand on Sherlock’s arm. 

“Giovanni d’Orsini. Call me Gio. May I come in?” 

Then there was more babbling. Introductions. More tea. The boy hadn’t eaten on the road, so the vicar warmed up more food. Sherlock felt strangely distanced and lightheaded through all this. How? 

“I only found out that the man I thought was my father wasn’t my father last week. I only found out about you last week. I came to England, but at first I had trouble finding where you were. I came as soon as I could.” 

Something very complicated happened in Sherlock’s chest at that. He would analyze it later. 

“She sent you a letter.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. Sherlock took it. Heavy, cream stationary. Wax seal. Crest. Interesting. 

“So she’s alive?” 

Gio smiled. “Very much so. She’s one of the most alive people I’ve ever met. She said the same thing about you, you know.” 

“Do you mind if I go into the study to read it?” He looked at his friends. His son. His son. He had confessed so much. But he needed to read this alone. 

“We’ll have desert,” Molly said. “I made Mrs. Hudson’s chocolate and espresso biscuits. We’ll save you some.” 

Sherlock picked up the last cigarettes and the lighter. Gio’s hands reached out and gently took them away from him. 

“Pardone. I have just tonight found you. These are not good. I am a doctor, and I know.” 

Sherlock laughed again, then covered his mouth with a shaking hand. Of course he was. Oh, John, he thought. I wish. I wish. He just nodded. 

“Excellent advice,” he said. “You might want to keep that pack as a souvenir. My last cigarettes. Actually, they belonged to your Uncle Mycroft. I’ll tell you….” Then his throat closed, and he couldn’t finish the sentence. About Mycroft. About John. About Mrs. Hudson. So many stories to tell. 

Gio smiled. “Go read Mama’s letter. It took her a long time to write. I will be here as long as you want me to be, I think.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now complete. Thanks to those of you who have read and commented on this. :hugs:

_Dearest Sherlock,_

_Allow me to introduce Giovanni Amato Orsini. I imagine you deduced less than five seconds after seeing him that he is, indeed, your son. The resemblance is quite uncanny. To make a very long story short, I went to ground in Rome. Gio was born there. I secured a husband, a new identity, and a protector for our son before he was born._

_Vicino was older and needed an heir. He was a papal count from a long line of papal counts. I’m sure you appreciate the irony. He was rich, influential, a good husband, a good father. The Orsini are a powerful family. I did my best for Gio. He was safe. He had a happy childhood. Vicino was not a demanding husband. The Italians understand these things. I have found the life of a wealthy woman in decadent Rome satisfying enough. My husband died last month, and he died a happy man. I knew what he liked. It was a fair trade, I think._

_I’m sure Giovanni’s first name needs no explanation. I always liked the idea of using family names, but I loathed my entire family. Please believe me when I say that I was truly sorry to hear of Dr. Watson’s death. I’m sorry he didn’t have a chance to meet Gio and to know that I was listening to what he said about baby names. Amato should also be obvious. You and my son were both loved by me. You needn’t be embarrassed because you think you didn’t love me in return. You loved me in your own way. It was enough._

_Why did I do it? I know I caused you pain, but I won’t apologize for what happened in Egypt. You, Mr. Holmes, were (and I’m sure still are) mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I knew that between you and his uncle The British Government, my son could too easily become a pawn in someone’s stupid game. Revenge. Blackmail. World domination. The possibilities kept me up at nights. Nothing you could have said would have convinced me otherwise. I found myself to be surprisingly, disgustingly maternal and protective of my cub as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I began planning. It was quite a magic trick. And, no, I didn’t kill her or her child. A tragic accident, but one I didn’t hesitate to use to my advantage. I may have dishonored her body, but she and her poor unborn child saved our son. He lived. You lived. Moriarty died. I will never say I’m sorry for any of that._

_I hope you’ll give me credit for pulling it off, even if you hate me now. How did I do it? Perhaps that’s a puzzle to keep you occupied in your declining years as you keep your bees and moon over John’s grave. Yes, I have my sources. Really, Sherlock, you’re much too young for all that. If you’d like to confirm your deductions, come to Rome. The Villa d’Orsini has an interesting history and a plethora of guest apartments. Or we could meet in Monte Carlo. That might be amusing. Or India?_

_In the end, you won after all. With Vicino gone, it was time to tell Gio about his real father and leave the choice up to him. With Mycroft gone and you retired, the danger had largely passed. He made the choice to seek you out. Of course. He is, after all, your son. He wants to know. Everything. I think he will want to stay in England. He completed his medical degree in Zurich last spring. Yes, how John would laugh! I never encouraged it and told him nothing about you or the good doctor until last week. They are expecting him to start his residency in Zurich in the spring, but I won’t be surprised to hear he has changed his mind. St. Barts, perhaps? Gio has every bit of your brilliance and more heart than either of us. You’ll see._

_Eva, Countess d’Orsini (I’m sure that, at least, amuses you)_


End file.
